Gottlob Ernst Schulze

Gottlob Ernst Schulze
Born	23 August 1761 Heldrungen
Died	14 January 1833 Göttingen
Alma mater	University of Wittenberg
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	German Idealism German skepticism
Institutions	University of Wittenberg University of Helmstedt University of Göttingen
Main interests	Epistemology
Notable ideas	Hume's skepticism about induction was not disproved by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Influences David Hume, Immanuel Kant
Influenced Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Gottlob Ernst Schulze (23 August 1761 – 14 January 1833) was a German philosopher, born in Heldrungen (modern-day Thuringia, Germany).

Biography

Schulze was a professor at Wittenberg, Helmstedt, and Göttingen.^[1] His most influential book was Aenesidemus (1792), a skeptical polemic against Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Karl Leonhard Reinhold's Philosophy of the Elements.

In Göttingen, he advised his student Arthur Schopenhauer to concentrate on the philosophies of Plato and Kant. This advice had a strong influence on Schopenhauer's philosophy. In the winter semester of 1810 and 1811, Schopenhauer studied both psychology and metaphysics under Schulze.^[2]

Schulze died in Göttingen.

Quotes

• "As determined by the Critique of Pure Reason, the function of the principle of causality thus undercuts all philosophizing about the where or how of the origin of our cognitions. All assertions on the matter, and every conclusion drawn from them, become empty subtleties, for once we accept that determination of the principle as our rule of thought, we could never ask, "Does anything actually exist which is the ground and cause of our representations?". We can only ask, "How must the understanding join these representations together, in keeping with the pre-determined functions of its activity, in order to gather them as one experience?"^[3]

References

1. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 7, New York: Macmillan, 1972.
2. Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, Vol. 2, Berg, 1988, ISBN 0-85496-539-4.
3. Di Giovanni, George, and H. S. Harris (eds.), Between Kant and Hegel, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000, p. 131, ISBN 0-87220-504-5 (original quote from: Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Aenesidemus, 1792, pp. 176–7).